1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to novel complex enzymes capable of hydrolyzing mucus released by bacteria in the course of their growth, the process for preparing said enzymes, and the use of these enzymes in reducing viscosity of fermentation musts in the commercial production of enzymes.
2. Prior Art
It is known that, in the course of the commercial production of enzymes and other secondary metabolites by bacilli, their secretion is generally accompanied with lysis of bacterial cell walls and/or release of highly polymerized complex polysaccharides into the growth medium. This results in a high increase of the viscosity of the fermentation must, whereby extraction and purification of the resulting enzymes are particularly uneasy.
Thus, the action of materials including peptidases, such as alanine amidase; glycosidases, such as muramidase, or lysozyme; and autolysins of a number of bacilli and bacteria capable of depolymerizing teichoric acids, causes degradation of the bacterial wall with release of high viscosity soluble products and submicroscopic particles. In addition to these products from degradation of the bacterial wall, the production medium of some bacterial enzymes also contains highly viscous polymers, generally polysaccharides, essentially comprising a chain of neutral polysaccharides, hexosamines and hexuronic acids.
The commercial fermentation of bacilli, particularly Bacillus subtilis and Bacillis licheniform is for the production of enzymes such as amylases, proteases, and the like, or of other metabolites, such as antibiotics, is thus generally accompanied with the occurrence of particulate products and highly viscous products in the fermentation medium, generally referred to as "mucus", the presence of which is quite troublesome from a technological point of view.